Town Portal return with a breadth of experience and colored-in skill trees to remind us why they’re one of the best bands out right now.
Release date: November 7, 2025 | Dream Bureau | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp
A big part of being a passionate music fan is being patient. I’m not the kind of person to be impatient when it comes to my favorite bands dropping new stuff. You can’t rush greatness, but there are times I often notice it’s been a while since we’ve gotten a substantial release from so-and-so and wonder what they’re up to. I’ve been at that point with Town Portal for a few years now after the release of their last LP in 2019, Of Violence.
Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t in a full-on drought during this time. Guitarist for Town Portal, Christian Henrik Ankerstjerne, established and put out a couple projects with a new band by the name of Inventory, in March 2023 and earlier in January this year. Both went woefully unreviewed by me for one reason or another, but suffice to say it was interesting stuff, more along the alt/indie rock wave and with vocals(!) from Ankerstjerne and bandmate/bassist Joakim Johnsen, it was well set apart from Town Portal. But now we have the return of their instrumental mathy, proggy ways with Grindwork, a meta testament to the time and effort the band has poured into this stuff, but also the mechanical hardness that permeates the sound on this LP.
The cool thing with Town Portal is the sense of wonder and playfulness despite everything else. The ways in which the band shift from moment to moment, either iterating on the established mood or upending it entirely, always feels natural and well-constructed which gives tracks a cinematic feel and chameleonic quality. At the center of it though, through instrumental tones and a near-indescribable vibe, is the identifying soul of the music. It’s what makes “A Reasonable Amount of Screaming” and “Grinding The Margins” – two disparate songs on here – still sound like they came from the same band. The way Town Portal incorporate softened elements of heavier music is a treat as well. Having worked with Kowloon Walled City – and me being a fan of that band as well – you can see the elements they share despite being pretty different bands.
It’s the kind of execution that makes their song title “Crushed Under Something Gentle” appear more autobiographical than you’d assume. The song shifts from almost industrial-tinged drumming and power melodies to wavy, mathy riffing with humming bass to form a brightly colored excursion that makes me feel similar things to when I was first diving into the instrumental prog rock/metal offshoots of djent and other things with bands like Scale the Summit who put feeling ahead of most everything else. At my age and after two decades of solid below-the-surface musical exploration, you have to cherish bands that bring back those immense feelings of discovery and whimsy, like you found a new planet and it was yours to name.
This is all ultimately why I’m speaking about Grindwork more generally and thematically rather than diving into too many details of the music itself. You can hear for yourself what it sounds like and what it pulls out of you will likely be different than what it did for me – that’s great! That’s part of what makes music so cool is the variance of thought and reaction that colors the edges of the experience. For my money, Town Portal are still one of the most unique bands in this realm, emphasis on ‘realm’, as they do act as a conduit to another plane where worries drop off and you can focus on the beauty and admirable aspects of existence for a little while. To that end, Grindwork also functions as a window into the best aspects of life, the things that make grinding and working toward a better life for us and others worth it in the long run. It’s a lot, but no one said it would be easy.
The album cover is also quite telling. Town Portal take raw, unrefined materials mined from the depths of the human psyche and distill, tweak, and manufacture it down to a bold, shining statement of exuberance that we can take as use as we see fit. For me, it’s a reprieve from harshness and struggle, where even the more fierce aspects of Grindwork simply show by example what we’re supposed to be doing, a guiding hand in an ever-darkening landscape of fear and turmoil that the music shines through. Its steady plucky attitude is resilient in the face of it all, so too must we be with what we face. Never leave your sanctuary without a Town Portal in your inventory.
